San Francisco mayor Ed Lee speaks to a large group outside City Hall prior to casting his early vote in the municipal election Tuesday October 11, 2011.

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

San Francisco mayor Ed Lee speaks to a large group outside City...

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A kiosk at the corner of Montgomery and Market Streets, one of some 79 newspaper kiosks around downtown, on Thursday Nov. 11, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif., which now sit idle because news stands themselves have become all but extinct.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

A kiosk at the corner of Montgomery and Market Streets, one of some...

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The final design of the new wing of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, under construction and set to open in 2016. This aerial view is from the east, looking toward Howard Street

Photo: Courtesy SFMOMA/Snøhetta / Courtesy SFMOMA/Snøhetta

The final design of the new wing of the San Francisco Museum of...

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The proposed addition to the San Francisco Museum of Modern would double the amount of the institution's gallery space and include several outdoor terraces. This view shows a new public path from Howard Street that would lead to the museum's raised entrycourt in the middle of the block.

In a different January, an architectural look ahead would ponder the various buildings on the horizon.

This year, not a chance. Construction cranes have only recently returned to the skyline and stasis remains the quo. Instead, here are five changes that I'd like to see in San Francisco. Some involve structures, but most involve sensibilities: the need to pay attention to the final product, rather than the process along the way.

Why? Because this is a mayor who for decades has set high standards with regards to architecture and urban design. He values what we can see and touch - the physical world, not just community impact fees or (Lee's genial mantra) jobs, jobs, jobs.

"Never allow buildings to be built without adding beauty to the city," Riley told an audience in 2008. It's a subjective measure to be sure, but a potent one as well.

-- One way that mayoral muscle can be flexed? The French company JCDecaux in the 1990s installed 19 news kiosks as part of a larger roll-out of public toilets. Print journalism being what it is, nearly all now stand padlocked and unused except (surprise!) for the advertising panels on the sides.

Lee should nudge JCDecaux to turn them into micro-business outlets, spaces for street vendors and the like. I'm willing to bet the firm would go along; proactive initiatives never hurt when it's time to renegotiate a contract.

-- I'd also like to see the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art take its eye off the ball for a moment - the ball being its big-budget and smooth-sailing expansion - and fill the post of curator of architecture and design that has been vacant since May.

The new facility won't open until 2016 but when it does, SFMOMA should use its expanded galleries in part to emphasize architectural themes in the here and now: how we create a 21st century city that responds to cultural and environmental needs with provocative urban design.

The fact that there's so much interest in SFMOMA's doubling of size is proof that people here care, viscerally, about how the city around us looks and feels. The museum should embrace this urge - the sooner the better.

-- While we're on the topic of SFMOMA, a simple request: Show us large-scale models of the new building's skin.

The schematic design rolled out last year is promising, no question. I'm a big fan of design architect Snøhetta and its local partner, EHDD. But the insertion of an abstract form in a rectilinear block will succeed or fail based on the tactile quality of the facade.

Snøhetta seems confident that the ideal cladding is glass-fiber-reinforced concrete, a lightweight material more common to the suburbs than the city. All we've seen so far are samples you can hold in the palm of your hand. That's not enough.

Anyone who walks the blocks south of Market Street knows that gridlock is fast becoming the rule because of detours caused by the Central Subway project. Automobiles routinely try to push the boundaries of yellow lights. Almost invariably, they fail. Tense confrontations ensue.

Hello! The budget for the creation of a subway from Mission Bay to Chinatown is $1.6 billion. There must be money to put yellow-vested people in intersections, moving cars through and signaling drivers to stop.